Thursday, June 27, 2013

Still in a loop: Green River...again


The day after we got back from Park City, on Father's Day, Bernie had to fly to South Caroline.
His company is based there; he travels all over for them so he can "work" from home, but often has to go back to the "Mother Ship" for a few days at a time.
A few weeks earlier he had booked another fishing trip on the Green River, this time on the middle section, or Part B.
(How we did the first and last part the last time without going through the middle part I still don't quite understand.)
Anyhoo...he got back about 10 pm on Wednesday night; we got up at 5 am on Thursday and drove the 3 1/2 hours over to the river for a mid morning start.
With the sky staying light until nine pm, it was still possible to get in a full day of fishing even with our later than usual start.

The weather was absolutely perfect.
Not too hot, not too cold, not too windy.
And the cicada were hatching!
Epic moment for fish folk.
Seriously, people fly in to fish when cicada are hatching!

So as before: Bernie fished, our guide rowed and I sat in the back of the boat taking pictures.
At one point I mentioned to our guide/oar man Kevin that the red rocks flanking the river looked like something one would see at Disneyland.
(When you grow up close to Disneyland and far from the great outdoors, you tend to think the outdoors looks like Disneyland instead of Disneyland looking like the outdoors.)
Kevin doesn't volunteer a lot of information but he casually told me that that the movie Jeremiah Johnson's camp scene was filmed in the small meadow facing the wall of rock.
That was hard to imagine: How on earth did they get generators and camera gear out there?
Now I want to see that movie again!

This part of the river had a rapids that was rocky enough that we were let off to the river side and told to walk down river while our guide steered over the rapids.
He does this all the time; really not worried about being tipped over as that has never happened to him but just to be on the safe side, he had us walk a bit.
That's Bernie in the orange; I was diddling around taking pictures and got a bit behind him.

I didn't take as many shots of this part of the river as I did on the other parts during our last trip.
It was not quite as a dramatic passage, but it did have its moments of unique beauty.

And it had fish.
Feisty fish!

Lots and lots and lots of fish.
Bernie hooked closed to thirty fish this trip.
Last trip he hooked 13 and I took a photo of each one.
This trip...I lost count and lost interest in getting a photo of each fish in the few seconds we had them in the boat before they were quickly released back into the river.

Bernie takes no chances with sunburn.
Usually he fishes with fishing gloves too.
He generously gave his pair to me so the back of my hands wouldn't burn and I wouldn't have to have sunscreen on my hands.

One of the fish caught...
 

and another one....

And another one...

In some places the Green River looks like a river of lime green koolaid.

Bernie must have casted a thousand times, and after each cast there was the tiny reeling back.
His arm was a little tired the next day.

Our guide Kevin asked me if I had ever seen Bernie so giddy.
He was pretty giddy and chatty.
So good to see him happy!

Happy indeed!

I am constantly torn between using my 60mm lens to get crystal clear shots in the boat and my telephoto lens for shots along the shore.
These two ducks didn't seem to care to be photographed regardless of the lens I used.

There were several Mama Ducks with babies paddling around.

Gee that was a pretty fish....
 
Sometimes the German Browns have bright red spots and other times the spots are all brown.
No one could tell me why that is.
 

Along the river there are campsites for both overnight and day use.
Families were enjoying their day on the river too.
Our guide told me of a time that he had lunched at one of those sites.
After he pushed off back onto the river he looked back and saw that a bear was up in the tree directly over the picnic table where he had just lunched.
After hearing that I sort of lost interest in camping on the river.
 
 

Muskrats kept swimming by like they had business on the other shore.
Very purposeful swimming.
I had never seen a muskrat before.

Duck population explosion.
There were several more ducklings ahead and behind this shot.

A slightly closer picture of another muskrat.
The boat is bobbing too...it is really tricky to get good photos of critters in the water.

During a potty break I hiked out of river view and saw this spider web/flower combo.

The rocks on the shore were jewel hued.

Just a few flowers were in bloom.
 

The catch of the day: A twenty inch German Brown!
 

I wore my waders even though Kevin said I didn't really need them.
I was so tempted to go wading around in the clear water, wade up to my chest without getting wet in the cold water.
Maybe some other day that can happen.
It would surely scare the fish if I did that and THAT is never appreciated.

Kevin spotted the blue heron.

They are such beautiful birds.
 

and another fish...

and another fish...

Same rock as earlier in the post but with more background.
Beautiful, yes?

This Mama duck has her "hair" standing straight up on her head like a punk mama with gel on her dyed red hair.
Her three babies look like lumpy rocks; she is keeping a close eye on her huge almost grown babies that are still in baby down feathers.

End of the drift.
It was a little after nine at night.

Photography schools teach that the best time to take pictures will be at sunrise and sunset.
It wasn't until the end of the time on the river that the lighting finally became that special light that makes all the pictures look amazing.

Next to the boat launch was an "old school" wooden drift boat.
It was such a beauty; even the inside woodwork was finely crafted.

As Kevin went to get the truck to haul the boat out of the river, Bernie got in a few more casts.
He caught one last fish.
As he put it: It was a day that he will dream about forever.
It was almost an hour long drive back to the Flaming Gorge Resort where we had begun our day.
Kevin told us a bit about the history of the area; we passed by a place where three states touch.
And where Butch Cassidy and the Hole in the Wall gang stayed.
Dinner...we ate at ten, peeling off our waders just before we went in.
By eleven we were fast asleep.
And Bernie dreamed on about fishing.

Monday, June 24, 2013

Park City...again.


I seem to be stuck in a loop lately.
Mid June, we went to Park City for a week; we have two weeks worth of time share up there and one of the weeks needed to be used.
We had drug our feet on booking a week until it was "use it or lose it" time, thinking that maybe something more adventurous might come up for us.
Job demands just didn't allow "adventure" just now.

We swapped our usual Marriott stay for a stay at the Westgate property, which proved to be an excellent swap.
Westgate really rocked!
And so how did our vacation go?
We had to skip the first day of our vacation because we were part of a Japanese maple tour.
Last year...just about the same time of June, we also skipped the first day of our Park City vacation time because of being on the Japanese maple tour.
Not the same week, just the same month.
We got up on Monday, I did what was needed with my job then we went up to Park City.
That first night up there we decided to go out for Thai food.
We attempted to go to one Thai restaurant, but it turned out it was closed.
So we went to another Thai restaurant on Main Street.
It wasn't until after we ordered that we realized we were in the same restaurant we had eaten at last year and that I had just ordered the same thing I ordered the year before.
A quick peek at my blog post from a year ago confirmed that fact.
That night I got sick.
Last year I was on pain meds recovering from oral surgery.
Another repeat in pain land, this time GI track, but still major ouch.
I wound up needing to return to SLC on  Tuesday for an parent and child assessment with my work.
They stood me up.
Grrr.
Wednesday I drove Bernie to the SLC airport so he could fly to Dallas for one night.
I picked him up on Thursday.
That left Friday, Saturday and Sunday for "vacation".

We worked at relaxing in between trips down the mountain.
We got massages, swam in the private spa area pool/jacuzzi, then swam in the inside adults only pool, with adults only jacuzzi, sauna, and steam rooms.
Then we did the same swim-sauna-steam-jacuzzi in the outdoor family pool.

Mostly though we hung out in our rooms.

Where there was a jacuzzi....cuz where else could we find a jacuzzi?
Three options at the resort for us to use besides in our room.
And we have one at our house too.
We didn't even get around to using the jacuzzi in the room...
Sad, isn't it?

As I said, we stayed at Westgate this time.
The property had four major buildings and each was named after a woodsy kind of animal.
We were staying in "Bear".
Which meant that our rooms were decorated with lots and lots of bear images.

Right down to the toilet paper holder!

We had a steam shower too.
I did use that.
Now I want one at our house too.
(That's probably not going to happen anytime soon though.)
We looked at each other and admitted that all we had done during our vacation was soak, steam, sauna, go out to eat, sleep, watch tv and read, whenever we weren't running off to work.
Slugs...total slugs.
And frankly it was becoming more than a bit boring.
I never thought it would be possible to get burned out on soak, swim, steam, sauna, sleep, eat and tv/movie watch.
Let me just say that actually...it is quite possible.

We tried to sit on the porch.
And agreed that deck sitting was better at home.

Even the coffee table had bears...
I finished the Eye of Moloch during the 24 hrs  Bernie was in Dallas.
Pretty good book; fast read.
Thursday afternoon we went fishing on the Weber River.
It was nice, just like it was last year.
And as it is so often during regular weeks...the twenty minute drive to the Weber is something we do quite often.
(If you remember the post about hoar frost on the river...the Weber River was where those photos were taken. We go there year around.)
Friday afternoon we walked around admiring wild flowers and eating at the same Mexican restaurant that we eat at each time we stay in Park City.
Saturday morning I was ready to go home but didn't want to say it....we still had another full day at the beautiful resort.
Around mid morning Bernie said he had something kind of weird to ask me.
What would I think about packing up and going home a day early?
I thought he would never ask!
What can I say.
The resort was fabulous.
But right then...there was no place like home for us.
I think that really says a lot about us.
We love adventure.
Relaxing?
We do that best at home.
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